Here is the HX-B5i five band HexBeam, assembled and awaiting
installation. Solo construction took about 2 1/2 hours.
There were no missing parts, and everything fit just fine.

This is the feedpoint of the HX-B5i HexBeam. the red wires
shown
here are the 20 M driven element,
and the black wires are the 20 M reflector.

This is the HexBeam base. Everything attaches to that big
hexagonal aluminum plate. The black blob on the RG-213
feedline is an RF choke, made from six Amidon FB-77-1024 Ferrite
cores, wrapped up and weatherproofed.

Braver men than I would have simply muscled the HexBeam up onto the
rotator, but I was not able to do so.
I tried to do it without the crane, but in the end decided that it
would be less expensive to pay the minimum charge for the crane to come
up from Gadsden Alabama, than to risk
damaging the antenna or find myself
in the hospital emergency room. Here we see the crane lifting
the
HexBeam into place. Here I am guiding it to
line up the rotator stub with the bottom hub on the HexBeam.

Next it was necessary to tighten the hex screws in the hub to initially
lock the hub to the rotator stub.
There is also a bolt which goes through the hub and stub in order to
completely fix the direction of the HexBeam.

The riskiest part of the whole process was climbing up past the plate
and disconnecting the crane strap.
The vertical mast above that point is plastic and is not safe to use
for support. As can be seen here, between
the crane operator and I we got the disconnection accomplished.

Here is a detailed picture of the completed rigging of the feedline for
the HX-5Bi HexBeam, and the control cable
for the Yaesu G-800SA rotator. Proper strain relief for the
cable
is the next step to be done.

This picture from the other side shows the entire antenna, rotator, and
pole attachment. This is a very strong setup, and there is
every
reason to believe that it should survive many years. Our only
worry is birds - very large birds. We have seen a nesting
pair of
osprey in
the neighborhood, and I have to wonder if they are attracted to this
sort of structure. (These birds have what appears to be a 1.6
meter
wingspan).

Finally, this is what the entire installation looks like from the
ground. The height of the HexBeam is about
13 meters (41 ft.) and no guys are required. There
is a 40 meter
(135 ft) long flat top attached right
below it.

All of my tests show that the HexBeam works well, and I have every
reason
to like it. It is very directional, and the difference on
receive between it and the wire I was using is
nothing short of amazing. There are
deep nulls about 135 degrees to both left and right of the main lobe.
I get great signal reports, better than
with any other setup I have ever owned.

But really, there are three attributes which make it fit my needs.
First it is compact. The turning radius is all of 3
meters, which makes it so that it fits in our very narrow downtown
city lot. Second, it does not look like a typical ham
antenna. The TH-3 I had in California was a complaint
magnet, because everyone knew what it was. Third, it covers
20-17-15-12-10 meters equally well.
For my operation (primarily CW or PSK-31, and usually barefoot) this is
a great advance.